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Standing ovations at Cannes Film Festival and the Hollywood Reporter calling her "the next big thing" are just some of the signs Australian actress Danielle Macdonald is one to watch.
Macdonald, 26, moved to Los Angeles just before she turned 19.
While in Australia she was cast as a lead in an American television series, but her working visa did not arrive in time for the shoot and she lost the job.
Despite the setback, the visa finally arrived, so she moved over — a brave step for a young actress.
Her breakout film Patti Cake$ — a coming-of-age of an aspiring rapper in New Jersey with wistful views of the distant big smoke (New York) — is actually not too much of a reality leap.
Patti has the triple outsider struggle of trying to join the competitive hip hop scene: she's white, she's female, and she's overweight.
"I love that she has these insecurities," Macdonald said.
"But when she is ready to do what she loves, she switches into this other world and she's tough, she can go for it, she can annihilate her competition."
Macdonald was brought up in the pretty and peaceful northern beaches suburb of Clareville, on the very outer edges of Sydney.
While Jersey and Clareville are aesthetically dissimilar, they both exist as the frames to their neighbouring monster metropolises.
"They're entirely different worlds, but you are kind of connected by the fact that it's this kind of small-town vibe, where you feel like you know people and the place and it's kind of homey," she said.
"I wanted to go overseas and act. I wanted to be an actor in an industry that isn't necessarily the most inclusive for anybody different.
Ditching Australia for Hollywood
Macdonald said her instinct was to make the leap to the United States because Hollywood, by virtue of being a larger, global market, was more open to casting actresses of diverse backgrounds and shapes than the small industry in Australia.
"Diversity is just 'the world'," she said.
"It's different cultures, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different religions, genders, sexual orientation, shapes, sizes.
"That is the world, but we call it diversity because there is this one type that has always been accepted in the media and it's finally starting to change."
Macdonald to star alongside Jennifer Aniston
She has had increasingly larger roles in TV and film, but Patti Cake$ is the big one, and has paved the way to more lead signings, including recently announced Dumplin', where Jennifer Aniston will play her mother.
Macdonald seems to be handling her shift into bona fide superstardom reasonably well, in fact, she seems destined for it.
"All of a sudden you get pushed into this whole other realm of existence you didn't realise you had before," she said.
Her confident alter-ego in Patti Cake$ doles out some seriously good self-advice that she should repeat.
"You're a boss bitch."
Patti Cake$ is showing at the Sydney Film Festival and will have wider Australian release in September.
Topics: arts-and-entertainment, film-movies, sydney-2000, united-states